it was already labeled the do nothing congress but did you know that the one hundred twelfth congress ended without renewing the violence against women act will dive into why some lawmakers blocked the bill just ahead the hacktivist group anonymous is known for fighting corruption and exposing wrongdoing worldwide so what does the new year hold for the group they have a message about what to expect in two thousand and thirteen and will share it with you. at some point most of us have wanted to vent about our jobs but can you complain or trash your company on facebook a new ruling by a labor relations board weighs in on that issue that story coming up.

it's friday january fourth five pm in washington d.c. i'm going lopez and you're watching r t. all right when the one hundred thirteenth congress was sworn into office yesterday and not a moment too soon the one hundred twelfth congress left a sour taste in many american mouths as the seemingly endless dare i say it fiscal cliff talks continued but that wasn't the only bill that muddy congress's reputation another bill a seemingly straightforward act protect women against sexual and domestic violence was also punted as the debate grew more political now for the first time in almost two decades the violence against women act has expired so let's take a quick look at what the bill protects and then we'll examine the new add ons that has house republicans reeling right now the bill allocates fragile money to government agencies in order to aid in the investigation and prosecution of

domestic violence of senders it creates a rape shield law that prevents attorneys of the offenders from using victims past sexual conduct against them in a trial it covers the expenses incurred by the victims of rape to go through these sexual rape exams conducted by hospitals without having to pay it pays for the training of law enforcement officials prosecutors and judges when it comes to domestic violence crisis calls and it also establishes and funds the national debt domestic violence hotline which averages about twenty two thousand calls each month . now those are just a few things that the bill already includes and has done so since its inception in one nine hundred ninety four but after speaking with thousands of women's rights activists and police officers and prosecutors the senate added three new protections into the bill when it came up for a vote in april they are barring the government agencies from discriminating against the l g b t community in cases of sexual and domestic violence allowing

illegal immigrants to experience who experienced loss of violence a temporary legal status in the form of a new visa as a trial plays out and also gives tribal authorities the power to prosecute non-natives in reservation court and major gaps in previous cases now earlier today i was joined by sharon stable she's the executive director for the new york city gay and lesbian antiviolence project i asked her to explain more about how these add ons work and why house republicans are so opposed to them well i think absolutely the violence against women act is the nation's response to intimate partner and sexual violence across the country and these are matters that we used to treat as private matters between family members since the violence against women act we've now been able to see these as social and health crises across the country that need a specific response and violence against women act does just that now i do want to take some time to break down pretty quickly and the added protections in the senate

version that passed the senate in april so let's look at some of the details that house or conservatives are complaining against first the bill is attempting to bar government agencies from discriminating against the l.g.b. of the community in cases of sexual and domestic violence let me ask you what's the thinking point with that. well first the what the bill would do and this is the reauthorization of the bill which is a as you mentioned earlier than one thousand nine hundred four the original bill which actually expired in january of two thousand and eleven not this january but is reauthorized every once in a while every five years or so and in this reauthorization the senate after speaking with the thousands of advocates that you talked about determined that it was critical to include protections for lesbian gay bisexual and transgender survivors of violence and those protections were modest in three places in the bill the first was that l g b t survivors would be characterized as under-served

populations that is survivors of violence that have not traditionally been. included in much of the response that the country has to domestic and sexual violence the second is actually not that the federal government would discriminate but that service providers who received funding under the violence against women act would not discriminate in discriminate in providing services to survivors of violence so they would have to provide services whether they were l g b t or whether they were non l g b t and the third is that l g b t people would be considered a specific purpose area and what is called the stop provision which is a specific provision for funding to states to allow states to respond to domestic and sexual violence there and another thing i know you can't get into specifics here but also this bill that is the reauthorization also gives tribal authorities the power to prosecute non-natives in reservation courts now this is a really

a measure to fill a huge legal gap from what i understand the women who are raped or beaten on tribal lands by someone who is a non-native end up in a sort of legal limbo the reservation cannot take a non-native to court because they don't have the right to do that and the reservation lands are outside of federal jurisdiction so. oh those women don't really have the right to to be able to prosecute anybody they're offenders and in court so how how can you argue against something like this i don't understand that there's they're trying to do some type of a compromise where they would be able to prosecute those people and set of it on tribal land in federal court instead in the the leaders of be able to hand that that trial over. well these kind of cases can already be prosecuted in federal court i think the issue here is that they are not often prosecuted and when they are the survivors of violence often have to travel very huge distances to be able

to participate in the case that make it almost practically impossible for them to do so and so these provisions would allow for their very modest provisions actually they would allow for tribal courts to prosecute misdemeanor sexual and domestic violence cases in those tribal courts and another big sticking point is the fact that this new bill allows illegal immigrants who experience domestic violence to seek a temporary legal status now this helps with the legal relief because it takes away the predators ability to abuse a situation when he knows that a woman who is an illegal immigrant won't be able to go to authorities to complain since she is not in the country legally so it's not a question of the fact that they are illegal immigrants we know there are illegal immigrants in this country but it's the problem that you know are we expecting these illegal immigrants to not speak up at all and also do i want them to self deport because they know that the u.s. government won't listen to their cries for help i mean what exactly are they trying to accomplish the house republicans by by not wanting this part of the bill well i

think there's a couple of things first of all you're talking about the u.v. says which is actually not a new provision that you visas have been involved since its inception and the only difference in the two thousand and twelve reauthorization bill was the ability to recapture some of the says that had not been used in the past so this wasn't even an increase in the visas the visas are a critical law enforcement tool and they are a way that encourages folks who are under documented to come forward and cooperate with the authorities so that the authorities can address domestic and sexual violence in a way that they wouldn't be able to without the victim or witness coming forward and they are a part of the fiber. vala they've been uncontroversial until this year and i think what's actually going on this year with the l.g.b. t. provisions with the tribal provisions and with the immigration provisions is what we're seeing is the sort of polarization of ideology in this country and in my

opinion the resistance in the house to these provisions is really based not in any sort of concern for survivors of violence but in a an attempt to prevent any legislation that would help l g b t people immigrants or tribal women from going forward now sharon i do have to ask you about this as well house conservatives are really the ones that are holding this legislation up so i have a few questions for you about the reasoning in the matter first of all relations between conservatives and women has passed there have been rocky at best let me remind our viewers why that is from what i understand from doctors that's really rare if it's a legitimate rape the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down strongly with my so for a long time but i came to realize life is a gift from god and i think even would life be good for that horrible situation of rape that it is something that god intended to happen now because of those two comments republicans essentially lost two senate seats so i have to ask you i mean

having republicans learn their lesson when it comes to dealing with women and speaking out about rape. well i think that the election hopefully showed that it is not going to be tough we are not going to tolerate in this country those kinds of comments that ignore the rights of of any violence any survivor of violence but i think what we have to really look at is this is a country where we have seen in this past election this is a country where that is broad and diverse and the representation in congress does not necessarily reflect that bret's or diversity and congress really has an obligation to to represent every single person in there just during their state including l.g.b. to people including immigrants including tribal women and then till they understand that they're going to continue to face the kinds of public repudiation that you

just showed in those two examples are and what we do know is that it's more or less the certain that some form of this bill is going to pass whether it's the watered down version or the version that includes these these new provisions is really the question some of i appreciate your time thank you for coming on the show i'm an app in the conversation there karen staple executive director for the new york city gay and lesbian antiviolence project thanks for having me and while we're on this topic of violence against women as a serving video went viral on the internet this week showing members of an ohio school football team bragging about the rape of a sixteen year old girl the girl was allegedly drunk possibly drugged and had been accosted by no fewer than two members of the football team before being dragged from party to party in a semi unconscious state now we hear it r t are choosing not to show that video frankly it seems recorded that don't deserve any more recognition then they have already received it's not

a video itself that we want to talk about but how it was obtained members of the night sect a group that is loosely affiliated with the hacktivist group anonymous released this video. protest the lack of legal action by local of four authorities is the latest example in their vigilante style activism where there's a lack of action by law enforcement officials or the government anonymous tends to step in and they have promised to cause even more cyber commotion in the next year here's part of the group's newest video about what's to come in twenty thirteen. i think the more information we really don't i thank you i. join me now to talk about some of the most notorious cyber attacks the group carried out in two thousand and twelve and

look ahead at what is could be in store for for this upcoming year is our team weapon douceur and blake and maggie hey andrew i want to start off by looking at this latest case that we just kind of talked about a little bit look at to some of the things that they believe that he did i don't know about you but this was the first time that i've really seen the group covered in a semi positive light for releasing this video of these boys bragging about this girl's break so let me play you what what the media did really quickly for. if it were not for social media as susan's talking about how this chain exploded in the nation's consciousness with this case if it ever gone anywhere and made it to a prosecutor want to celebrate even though anonymous is a bit of a controversial group i want to celebrate social media including anonymous for what they did here because this is a new era where democracy in action and people going to the internet are now able to share information in a way that will hold prosecutors and law enforcement officials accountable every

time when they don't proceed with the case and people think it's on just this is it you said a form of vigilantism only it's a good guy so they're celebrating their behavior more or less some disquiet change of face from what we first heard when the group came out about them being completely lawless you really haven't seen anything like that in the mainstream media and a really long time actually in fact when anonymous first started getting any sort of coverage whatsoever it was back in zero six zero seven and if you talk to some anonymous always point you towards a video that was done by a fox affiliate in southern california where there was like an initial package done on this evil terrorism group called anonymous that was just destroying the internet they were hackers on steroids and their mission was just to to do harm and get there lol well you know things have come a long way and people actually start to wake up and realize ok well people with this group or who are aligning with this group are doing stuff where. the majority of people at least in our society might actually accept with what they're doing we

saw that just last month after the newtown shooting when westboro baptist church said look we're going to go over to connecticut and we're going to protest use the moral services and anonymous pretty much sent out a call to arms immediately and they were in on from all over the country who actually traveled to newtown and were you know not just on the internet but they're in real life trying to stake out members of the westboro baptist church so they can alert other people of. where they're going to be how they're planning on protesting what they were going to do to demonstrate and they were able to counter that before it even happened so they were doing this you know real life vigilante work not just behind a computer screen and it did receive a little bit of attention to that was something where people really looked up and said oh these guys are doing something more than just crazy internet hackery maybe they're doing something more than just raising alarms on there and shutting down websites and maybe they're trying to make a message with every web site that they shut down as they are so it's always been

the case i mean if you go back and look at the old operations going back to the last several years there's been i mean there are always there for a reason you know anonymous has always been able to pull people together and say look here is a mission that i think we can all get behind let's try to do this and in some cases you'll have a few dozen or few hundred few thousand people you know often have no idea who each other are but can get behind a common cause and say you're right we have to do this by any means necessary and that's exactly what we're seeing here in every day we're seeing more and more people actually join in and say look the whole steubenville rape thing that we're going to talk about this seems ridiculous and that's why we're seeing so much coverage right now because it's something that people like the american mainstream can actually say it's relatable it's not like the. where where it was crazy internet legislation where only crazy internet nerds like myself are really really really freaked out over this is the rape of a sixteen year old girl people are taking this pretty seriously in a very into from what i understand it's not that they are really trying to protest against the lack of law enforcement in prosecuting those two individuals that they

know were involved in the rape is that they were upset about from what i understand the eyewitnesses that videotaped on facebook and instagram and tweeted about that instance while it was happening and then when local law enforcement agencies asked them to step up they chose not to and is that correct you know the whole assault itself happened i believe august eleventh two thousand and twelve almost six months . into the past six months and gone by and let people really haven't heard about the. story at all the new york times did a great like eight page article a little while back but. after a while anonymous started single look at what's going on here in one specific cell that's what i want to refer to a cell of anonymous called night sack actually have people working with sources directly in steubenville and have actually been getting i've heard upwards of like hundreds of leaks coming in from locals who want people to be aware of what happened and make sure that justice is had because if we go back to those five months ago in august there's only been two charges filed against anyone's whole

case two youths who are allegedly responsible for actually raping this sixteen year old girl but if you go online you can go through what knight sec has has uncovered what they handed over to a website called local leaks the stuff that they have published they're pretty much show that this was not just like a one time one moment flash rape this there's a lot of people involved a lot of people the community who are aware of it and there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done i think law enforcement will do and it's going to take people like anonymous to actually go and put a fire on their ass to make it happen so let's keep this conversation going and let's not let's show some of the things that they've done in two thousand and twelve and they can actually help me and help the viewers and let's let's walk through their viewers everything last january they did that they perform the operation go ahead talk about. the one hundred twentieth megaupload obviously the file sharing site run by kim dotcom one point it was in the top five most visited websites in the entire world and the f.b.i.

in the part of justice didn't like it said it was encouraging copyright infringement and shut it down in response a bunch of a nonce got together and they took down the f.b.i. web site they took down the web site for the recording industry association of america and so on and so forth and that's let's keep going through this they also attacked the israeli government website after israelis launched a deadly air strike on the gaza reason and they are israelis also threatened to internet service to the people they're moving on they. did the similar thing in syria in november when president bashar al assad threatened to take the internet out of the country they kept that internet going there and last month they actually did exactly what you were talking about they hacked the westboro baptist church members website because they were planning on picketing. quite a busy year for them has it not yeah i mean absolutely in a lot of people don't realize it because a lot of people think these are just some nerdy computer hackers that are hiding behind screens in the united states who only care about you know the walls if it

where but no actually there's you know thousands upon thousands of people spread out over the course the entire world who are making sure lately we started out with syria and israel that people still have open access to information that people are safe that people can can figure out how to get by these hardships when government regimes step in and try to censor the internet or you know like we saw in gaza to kill innocent civilians so i have another quick question for you i've got two quick questions trying to get to first of what are we expecting from in twenty thirteen is there any way to know no of course not i mean if you call i don't know. if you're really interested in finding out what like minded individuals are doing on the internet if you have if you think that you can relate to some of these things and you can get behind some of these exact missions you should just go online and look them up it's crazy to see just this this operation right here with the rape in steubenville you know it got picked up by c.n.n. and it got picked up in the atlantic and people are caring about it and going online saying how can i help how can i learn more and that's how people end up

going to these chat rooms people and you know exchanging tweets so i mean obviously no one really tell is going to happen in the future but if people who actually think that they can get behind i want to see a common cause because you never really know how things are going to move but it's not that hard to go and find other people on the internet who share the same interests and beliefs of you and to carry out a mission with them and the whole point of view has bring people together right and it certainly does that the world wide web of course you know one thing that is quite interesting is that it's hard to paint them in a bad life because what they're doing s is a label but at the same time when they're helping out a rape victim it's hard to say that what they're doing is the worst case scenario where producer andrew blake thank you so much for weighing in on this topic of course thank you. well you all have those moments the ones where you just want to wring your boss's neck or slap some sense into them in the past those frustrations sound now lead with talks around the water cooler you complained get it off your chest and then you go back and sit quietly at your desk but being the digital age

it was only a matter of time before those complaints made it onto the internet more people are choosing facebook and other social networking sites as a means to exert their anger thinking it was protected under a person's first amendment right to free speech but it's not you see the constitution protects americans rights to free speech against government independent interference and not private employers a number of employees across the country have actually been a number of employees across the country have actually been facebook but that could soon change a small but important victory was won in the courts one that could make way for more forms of free speech the national labor relations board cited a group of employees and determined that putting your dissent on out on the internet could be considered quote a collective action meaning that you can improve you can protest and it's not considered to be libelous to explain this loophole and what it means for your job

i'm joined now by josh eidelson labor journalist and a tribute or for salon dot com. hey there josh thanks for joining us you've been covering this topic for quite some time so let's talk about the latest case involving the hispanics united of buffalo thank you so as a route this is a major precedent it's one we've been waiting many months floor because this is the first time the presidential you really need members of the national labor relations board. or both in forcing and inter-breeding us private sector labor law have ruled directly on this question of facebook postings as what's called protected concerted activity now protected concerted activity traditionally people associate with things like going on strike wearing buttons workers all wearing the same t. shirt to work to important to keep in mind this is not just something that union activists can do you don't need to have

a union you don't need to be trying to form a union the legal standard is needs to be workers who are getting together to try to improve their working conditions so let me stop you right there josh tell me who exactly is protective of us and who isn't and so most private sector workers are covered under the national labor relations act of one nine hundred thirty five there are many groups of workers who are in excluded like farm workers and domestic workers but most private sector workers are covered under this law whether or not you have a union and wall in the united states we often talk much more about individual rights in this case there is no individual right in the united states under law to speak freely without getting fired for it there is a collective right under labor relations act for workers to band together to improve their working conditions and in some cases then the letter b. has now said posting on facebook could be one way to do that so does this mean that it's a pretty basically

a free for all in facebook you can just let your emotions hang out along with pictures of you say doing the kids that are at a party it does not it absolutely does not mean free reign under federal law bosses can and do fire people for all kinds of speech whether it's on facebook at the bar or a bumper sticker as long as they're firing you for something that's purely individual speech they can get away with it there was even a case where a worker went on is us. said i don't think my company deserves the public subsidies it's getting and got fired for that in the end lurgy did not intervene because it was one individual but it does mean that if you get together with a group of coworkers and you have a conversation on facebook that judged to be an effort to improve your working conditions or to instigate some kind of action for the working conditions then you may have the legal right not to be fired for it so josh let me ask you this is really kind of seems like it comes down to

a little bit about the message but more so about how many people comment are like your status and more so if those people were actually your coworkers so if i put out a message by myself and said something wrong you know i could potentially be fired but if other coworkers have the same problem and like it or comment are riposte that then i'm potentially covered is that correct there is a gray area here the labor board has found in the past that in some cases what one individual does could count as concerted activity if it's clearly part of the process of preparing for an anticipated and collective action but it's something to do tread very carefully with and the truth is concerted activity has never been a very firmly defined category there are multiple questions it depends on how directly it's related to your working conditions how many people are involved whether there's something about it that is so offensive that labor board decides

it's not protected anyone but this does mean that employers if they don't want to break the law may have to think twice about cracking down on employee speech when it is related to working conditions now at the end of the article he says that the succession of this role still of remains pretty narrow should that or will that change in the future. it should it won't necessarily happen through the national labor relations board the board is limited by how broadly you can interpret this law from nine hundred thirty five but it is deeply concerned with what they think of as first amendment rights the right to free speech as you said don't exist in the workplace unless your employer is the government the first amendment doesn't stop your employer from cracking down on you for all kinds of things there is a famous case where someone was fired for volunteering with

a local aids foundation someone's been fired for wearing the bumper sticker on their car in the parking lot for a candidate that their boss didn't like there are all kinds of ways that employers can crack down on your free speech not just at work but outside of work in the privacy of your home even if they find out about it so that this is the exception in the rule now just on the other hand when at will employee goes to work they usually tend to find a form saying that they agree to the company's policy so is it really that surprising when somebody is fired that they actually are fired for what they said and that the company has held up their own policy as well lou question given that going to work for most people in the united states having the job is necessary to be able to eat to be able to have a roof over your head the question is how much control should have a boss have over the rest of your life. already employers control in

intimate ways what you can do during the time you're at work how often you can go to the bathroom what you can look like how what kind of haircut you can have but we don't talk about often is always they control your conduct outside of work i would say no it should not be a condition in order to have a job that pays you and generally provide you health insurance that you in a way that your manager approves of once you leave the property but for most workers in the united states it is well what we do know is that this is a a small a step forward and something that some call as a person's entitled right to be able to use free speech just idle said labor journalist and contributor for salon dot com thank you so much for your opinion sir thank you very much and that's going to do it for that is for this hour but for more on the stories we covered gotta get to dot com slash our to america there you can click comment and forward our stories to your friends and don't forget to check out our web site that's our to dot com slash.